In the area of biology and medicine, understanding cells and their supporting structures in tissues and tracking their structure and distribution changes are very important. Histology is the study of the microscopic anatomy of tissues and is essential in the diagnosing disease, developing medicine and many other fields. In histology, thin slice of tissue samples are examined under a light microscope or electron microscope. In order to visualize and differentiate the microscopic structure of the tissue sample, a common approach is to stain the tissue sample with a combination of several dyes that have selective responses to different biological substances. In doing so, specified biological substances such as nuclei, cytoplasm, membranes, other structures, and specific proteins can be visually enhanced.
Breast cancer is one of the major diseases that threaten the well-being of human beings. Human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2) is a protein found on the surface of cells that, when functioning normally, has been found to be a key component in regulating cell growth. However, when the HER2 protein is altered, extra HER2 protein receptors may be produced. This over-expression of HER2 causes increased cell growth and reproduction, often resulting in more aggressive breast cancer cells. Based on this finding, multi-stain based HER2 testing has been developed for invasive breast cancer. The HER2 testing results are represented by an HER2 “score”. Currently, the process of generating an HER2 “score” is purely based on the visual analysis of an examining pathologist. The process is time consuming and results are often inconsistent.
Therefore there is a need in the art for an efficient method and apparatus for automatic HER2 scoring of tissue samples.
Further limitations and disadvantages of conventional and traditional approaches will become apparent to one of skill in the art, through comparison of such systems with some aspects of the present disclosure as set forth in the remainder of the present application with reference to the drawings.